


Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone.

by flight815kitsune



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:52:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flight815kitsune/pseuds/flight815kitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>George was in a bad place after the Battle of Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laugh and the world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unregisteredmutant](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=unregisteredmutant).



He wasn’t used to being alone. From the time he had breathed his first breath, Fred had been there. The days shouldn’t feel so long.

When he hears his brother’s name called, he looks in the place of a man who isn’t there. He looks at the one doing the calling, like he always did, but there isn’t anyone to share it with. No one who knew the sad truth would fall for it anymore

Seeing his own face in the mirror isn’t the same.

Ron had caught him staring at his own reflection, and had jumped to that assumption.

But no. He knew every line of his brother’s face, every freckle. The way his hair fell. The small line of a scar on his lower lip from a fight years and years ago. He knew how his smirk make his mouth quirk up on the left. The mirror couldn’t even mimic that, even if he forced himself to look at it in such a way that his missing ear wouldn’t give him away.

He hadn’t been looking for familiarity in his own reflection. He had been looking for answers he would never get.

Why you?

Did it hurt?

Where are you now? It’s not here, I’d know if you were here. Always did.

What am I supposed to do now?

It hurt. Waking up every day. Angelina was there, on the bad days.

She was perfect. Kind, quiet. She never tried to say it would be okay, never tried to tell him how to feel.

There were times it felt like betrayal. Times he questioned if what she saw in him was a ghost of the past and if it would all just be better if he left. She wouldn’t leave, she cared too much.

Even when he had too much firewhiskey, had yelled “I’m not him” and not come back for days, she was there waiting when he came back.

He’d have lost it if it wasn’t for her. He’d have gone down paths he might not have managed to find his way back from.

But she was there, every day.

When she said she was pregnant, he was terrified. He wasn’t sad every day anymore, but he wasn’t quite happy, and didn’t want to bring a kid into this. Or kids. Twins were in his family, and if they took after him and he had to see two redheaded boys every day, had to know what those smiles meant, the kinds of things whispered to each other…

She was only having one, and the relief he felt at that disgusted him.

When he was delivered, they didn’t even need to talk about the name. He was Fred II.

Dumbledore’s Army still met. Old friends still shared their lives with each other. He had gone to so many birthdays, so many weddings. A few funerals, but those were outnumbered by the celebrations of new life that seemed to show up every year.

So many Weasleys to carry on the next generation. So much family to keep him company.

He still felt alone.

Angelina had Roxanne. His family was growing. He was there for them, or at least he tried to be. He loved them and he would always be there when they needed him. He taught his son how to take a bat to a bludger before he could read. There were days when he was happy and not just numb.

Luna met someone, had a wedding.

He was in St. Mungo’s with a mob of people when she gave birth.

Twin boys.

Angelina found him in the lavatory, staring at his own hands.

There were marks there Fred didn’t have, never would have. His hands were showing how much he had used them. Small scars from new experiments, He had a few of those, there was no one else to be a guinea pig anymore. The calluses they both shared, from a bat, from a wand, from a quill…his were fainter now. Ron took care of most of the paperwork. He didn’t have the hands of a student anymore.

Fred always would.

She waited for him until he was ready to go home.

He stayed away from events that had kids after that.

So many inventions, each year new students and new opportunities.

He forgot most of the time, now. It was bright and happy and he was in the center of it all.

Peeves must have mentioned them by name, student after student had asked ‘is it true?’. He smiled and dismissed them with vague affirmations.

Angelina saw the tears at night, and she never asked why.

He realized that he never stopped asking ‘Why?’. He had just reduced the frequency.

Two boys came into the shop. One wore a Hufflepuff scarf, the other a Slytherin tie. Both blonde, both with light eyes. They looked like their mother, and each other.

He was fine. He could hold it together. He was ready to help them, to see what they needed. They were just another set of students, just more customers to assist. He had taken a step towards them as they looked at the newest generation of Skiving Snackboxes.

Not Ravenclaws like their mother. Not at all.

A classmate calls out “Lorcan!”

Both of them turn.

He stays in the back of the shop for the rest of the day.

He went to Hugo’s birthday party.

There were many familiar faces there, relatives, friends, kids who had entered his shop.

The two blondes blended in with all the others. It was easy to assume they were Fleur’s as long as he didn’t look too closely. He ignored them.

It was Christmas at the Potter’s. It still felt strange to think of his little sister as anything but a Weasley, but seeing her name next to quidditch articles had trained that response away for the most part.

He curls up on a chair by the fire. Angelina was happy, his kids were happy. His mother was overjoyed.

He doesn’t recognize that he’d fallen asleep until a boys voice says “Hey” and a small hand tugs on his.

“Don’t you listen to your elders? You’ll lose a buttock waking a veteran.” He grumbles without opening his eyes.

“They usually mention ‘constant vigilance’ in the same breath. You don’t seem all that vigilant to me.”

He has to smile. Opens his eyes and the first thing he notices is the silver and green.

“Bloody Slytherin.”

The kid has the audacity to huff and he looks him over. Blonde. Wavy hair. He’s definitely not Louis after a growth spurt. Damn.

He stares at the kid. “I’m up.”

“Umm…”

“Out with it.” He’s smiling. He could do this. He could-

He pulls out a battered piece of parchment. The folds are familiar, the tattered edges, the ink stains.

“James gave this to us, but we can’t figure out how to make it work. When Lorcan tried to persuade it, it told us to ask a master. You’re a legend, so…” He had tilted his head back towards the door when mentioning his brother’s name, and George’s gaze traveled there. The other half of the set is peeking from behind the door frame.

It hurts.

But he smiles. It wouldn’t do to leave them completely unprepared. “Get in here, I’m not telling this story twice.”

He hadn’t told the story of how they got it in so long.

He had never told it alone.

So he stumbled over some parts, had to search to remember details, but he got it out. The instructions of how to use the map shared quietly.

The brave Slytherin, Lysander, asks if the story about the swamp was true.

He stumbles less with that one. Once he gets going, the stories link together. Tales of pranks and of having to go to school with Harry Potter blend with small things from the war and quidditch games past.

He laughs, and they laugh with him.

He’s sad to see them go, makes them swear to stop by his shop.

It hurts, when he sees them share a knowing glance and matching smile with each other; but for just a moment, as the memories hold him captive, he doesn’t feel so alone.


End file.
